Moe Lane

I talked with several folks from Heritage and AEI after the debate, in order to get their reactions to how the debate went, how it came off, and how they felt the debate came across to watchers.

As you can see, spin rooms are kind of noisy; they’re also pretty focused places. Everybody in there – including probably you – needs a specific piece of information and/or quote to finish up their own material, and the sooner they get it, the sooner they can get somewhere about ten to fifteen degrees Fahrenheit cooler. This is actually conducive to good manners; after all, arguments and shouting matches eat into time. Should you ever participate in one of these, I recommend patience, waiting your turn, and hitting the restroom on your way in.

And business cards. They’re highly useful in these situations.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

My post-debate take, which is of course made vastly more relevant by the fact that… I followed it onsite rather than online.  Well, online at onsite.  Generally, these events are a bit different from the inside, including (surprisingly) less chances to schmooze with the candidates than you’d expect.  A ‘spin room’ is there primarily to get access to raw material for the article that you need to write the next day; if you were thinking that candidates would hold court there, well… no.  Still useful for getting access to campaign managers and press liaisons, though.

Anyway, my take, alphabetically: (more…)

(Via @magnolia_tree) It’s a marvelous idea, really:

According to the Fox News White House blog:

The White House says that the President has decided to give the approximately $1.4 million prize accompanying his Nobel Prize to charity. They have not made a decision on which charity or charities will receive the money.

Here’s an idea for the President: He could give the 216 low-income kids back the scholarships that his administration took away from them earlier this year.

But if the President was gutsy enough to make that sort of gesture at the teacher’s unions, then those kids wouldn’t have had their program killed by the resegregationists in the first place.

Moe Lane

But, hey, remember: “I won.”

Or, as Heritage put it, “The Pelosi-Reid-Obama Debt Plan”. Anyway, Politico reports:

President Barack Obama is coming to the Capitol this afternoon to curry favor with congressional Republicans. But it appears GOP leaders have already made up their minds to oppose his $825 billion stimulus plan.

House Republican Leader John A. Boehner and his No. 2, Whip Eric Cantor, told their rank-and-file members Tuesday morning during a closed-door meeting to oppose the bill when it comes to the floor Wednesday, according to an aide familiar with the discussion. Boehner told members that he’s voting against the stimulus, and Cantor told the assembled Republicans that there wasn’t any reason for them to support the measure, according to another person in the room. Cantor and his whip team are going to urge GOP members to oppose it.

In a nod to the president, Boehner did point out that this is the third time that Obama has met with Republican leaders, compared with the zero meetings they’ve held with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — a now-familiar refrain from Republicans in the House. But Obama’s diplomacy clearly isn’t buying any votes yet.

(H/T: Instapundit) Apparently, “I won.” counts as diplomacy these days. (more…)